


Prince of Persia: Curse of the Sandglass

by Setcheti



Series: Prince of Persia: Age of the Sandglass [2]
Category: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Betrayal, Bittersweet Ending, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Graphic Description, Immortality, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Magical Artifacts, Murder, Religious Content, Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:05:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setcheti/pseuds/Setcheti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those on whom the blessings of the gods fall...must be prepared to make sacrifices in equal measure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I can't warn you that this has DISTURBING and sometimes GRAPHIC content enough times - seriously, my _wife_ refused to read this story, and I debated whether I should even post it. It doesn't start out as a happy story, some of it is quite gruesome, and it doesn't have an entirely happy ending.
> 
> That said, it is actually the second half of the first story, _Mark of the Sandglass_. I wrote them as one huge story, but the ending wasn't done so I only posted the first half. The happy half. The half that didn't require fifteen different warning tags and a Mature rating. And the other half just kind of hung around in my WIP folder, and then one day, much to my surprise, I finished it. So here it is, in all its unhappy glory...because that was just the way the story wanted to end.

Several years had passed since the marriage of Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina in Alamut, and in that time both Alamut and Persia had prospered, for Sharaman was a good and wise king who valued peace but knew the power of war. And the hand of Persia was light upon the sacred city of Alamut, a city which guarded a great and terrible secret, and whose wise and kind princess and her prince were also a Priestess and her Champion. So they were known far and wide throughout the Persian Empire, and into India and Egypt as well. And under their benevolent protection also prospered the City of Golden Plumes, which had begun as the tent city of Sheikh Amar in the Canyon of Ghosts. For Amar was an ally to them, and had lent his aid to Dastan to assure the destruction of the evil and half-legendary Hassansin, and the sworn pact he had with Alamut for mutual aid and assistance also kept the dreaded Persian tax-gathering army from his walls.

It came to pass that Prince Dastan had gone to visit Sheikh Amar at the City of Golden Plumes, where he was an infrequent though honored guest, and he had attended to some business there and lent his sword and those of some of his men to Amar in order to beat back a group of raiders who had been terrorizing travelers in the surrounding desert. They were successful, and within just a week’s time Dastan and his men were riding back to Alamut and very pleased with their accomplishment – especially as the heads of the raiders now watched over the Canyon of Ghosts much as many predecessors of theirs had done, and their bones had been burned and buried there. Once, perhaps, they would simply have been hung, or buried, but after the discovery that several of the Hassansin had been of the walking dead, corpses animated by demons, the rulers of both the City of Golden Plumes and Alamut no longer found those methods of disposal to be adequate for handling the mortal remains of their enemies.

It was a pleasant ride back to Alamut, and they did not hurry it for they had no reason to, and so it was some half a day later that they arrived at the gates of their city and made their way to their respective homes within it. Prince Dastan himself rode straight to the palace of Alamut, giving his horse to the servants who met him and hurrying inside, eager to see his wife and son. The son was very new, only just three years of age, and very precious to both his parents as the gift of the Sands tended to prevent those who received it from bearing children unless the gods willed it to be so. The very thought made Dastan smile as he entered the family part of the palace and went to the chamber where his wife was wont to spend sunny days with their son.

But she was not there.

Dastan went to the nursery and found it empty, then to the bedchamber he shared with his wife and found that empty as well. Still, though, he was not alarmed; there were many places his wife and son might have gone, both within the palace and without. He quickly found a servant to inquire of, a serving girl who had come to work at the palace perhaps a fortnight before. “Where is my wife, Sacha?” he asked.

“In her rooms,” was the girl’s reply. “She went in several days ago, and not long after you left, and it was her request that she not be disturbed.”

Dastan was immediately suspicious, as it was not like his wife to lock herself in their rooms when there was a city to run and a temple to maintain. “Was she ill?”

“That I do not know.”

“Who passed on her request?” The girl didn’t remember, so Dastan called guards next and ordered them to round up every servant and to search the palace for his wife and son. Which was done, and still there was no sign of either of them. Some of the guards moved out to search in the city, and the people of the city were alerted so that they might search as well, but Dastan himself stayed behind to ask more questions of the servants. Those who did not work in the family’s part of the palace were quickly excused from the investigation after answering only a handful of questions, but those who worked close to the royal family were looked at more closely. Finally only three were left, one of whom was the selfsame serving girl who had come to his summons when he had first arrived back at the palace. For a time she maintained still that she did not know anything, and they were near to believing her when one of the other servants being questioned broke into tears. “No!” he cried. “I cannot take it any more, even for the gold I was given and the silence I promised. The princess and her child have never done harm to me, I am sick with thinking I may have done harm to them by my sil…”

That was when the serving girl fell upon him with a sharp knife pulled from her clothing and slashed his throat that he might speak no more, and when the guards advanced on her she turned on them with a snarl. “He was a traitor, he broke his sworn word – he deserved to die! My master has taken the princess and the child to fill his needs, I will not allow him to be betrayed in my hearing!”

Dastan himself was the one who slapped the knife from her hand, and he took her by the throat. “What have you done?! What ‘master’? Your duty was to myself and my wife.”

“My duty is to my master, not to blood filth and its get! The princess will find in him a worthier husband…”

Dastan slapped her for that, throwing her from him and drawing his sword. “Where is my wife?!”

“Far, far from here,” she screeched…and then in the space of a breath she drew another dagger from her clothing and plunged it into her own breast, dying with her secrets still locked within her, laughter and blood bubbling from her lips.

For a moment Dastan contemplated turning back time and stopping her death – or turning back time so he could kill her himself – but he decided against it. He had been careful with the gift his encounter with the Sandglass had left him, never using it lightly as he knew he could not afford to become dependent on the ability to simply reverse time and correct his mistakes rather than using his wisdom and skill to avoid making them in the first place. And he could not reverse time to prevent his wife being taken as he did not know the exact time of it and had not been in the city then anyway, nor could he reverse it by a week or more to prevent himself leaving Alamut in the first place. He re-sheathed his sword and turned to the remaining men who were with him. “Gather the rest and expand the search; send also a messenger to Sheikh Amar that he might know what has happened. Some sign or clue must have been left, someone must know who has taken my family – and who this ‘master’ is who is so bold as to claim my wife for his own.”

The guards fairly ran from the room to do his bidding, and Dastan would have left on their heels…but then he saw something on the body of the serving girl, a mark strangely familiar upon her arm, which had been but partially revealed as her clothing was disarranged by her struggles and subsequent death. He drew his sword and approached her, cautiously, and then used the point of the blade to pull the fabric away from the mark that he might see it and know what it was. Once it was revealed, however, he stood staring at it, unable to make his mind or heart believe that it was as he recognized it to be, a brand used to mark the trusted servants of…

Datstan sheathed his sword again and ran from the room as though a demon were at his heels, pale as death. He took secret ways known only to himself and his wife to enter the sacred central chamber of the Temple of the Dagger, and was relieved to find the Dagger still in its place upon the altar, untouched and unscathed. Quickly but carefully he closed up the room and sealed it, and then fled back down into the palace proper, grabbed the first few guards he encountered and changed his orders to them, including sending a second messenger after the first with a sealed message for Amar which included the instruction that should the message not be sealed on its arrival the messenger should be put to death as a traitor that very hour. And then he was getting two fresh horses and racing out of the city in the hope that he was not to late to save his wife…or his brother.

It was two days hard ride to the summer palace to which Tus moved his ‘herd of wives’, as Garsiv often called them, when the weather grew inhospitable near the Persian capital where their father the king dwelt for most of the year. Dastan knew they were still there, as autumn was just coming upon the country and the days were still hot even thought the nights had begun to grow colder – though they might tease him about the number of wives he kept, Tus loved his large family and would not risk his much-adored children or oft-preganant wives by moving them into the oppressive heat to which they were not accustomed. He had always taken great care of them, and it was partly from his example that Dastan himself had learned the finer points of caring for the well-being of his own wife and child. Although Tamina was nothing like the docile creatures which Tus had chosen to seal his alliances and breed his heirs.

Was Tus at the summer palace, though? Or had he ridden off, conducting the business of their growing empire with or for their father or overseeing a siege or budding battle with Garsiv and the army someplace else? Had whatever animal that had taken his wife and child, and used one of Tus’s own servants to do so, taken over the summer palace and was even now terrorizing the women and children within? Or had Tus been taken prisoner as well, was he being held for ransom to their father and his wives and children along with him as hostages whose blood was not too precious to be spilled as there were so many of them? And if such was happening, why had no messenger been sent to warn Dastan of the danger his own family might be in, or to call on him to help?

Especially as his father knew that there was a great deal Dastan could do to help – a great deal more than most men could ever claim to do. Garsiv also knew this, and Dastan suspected that Tus had some knowledge of it as well but had chosen to keep it a secret unspoken as it was not one he had been invited to share aloud. Dastan pledged to himself that, despite the lesson of fear the legacy of their Uncle Nizam had taught him, he would tell Tus all in his own words if he did but arrive at the summer palace to find him alive and safe.

The sight of the black banners flying above the palace when he drew near made his heart almost stop beating within his chest. Someone was dead, someone of the royal family.

The very small city was quiet and watchful as he rode his stumbling horse over the streets and right up to the steps of the palace. No one was in the market, no children laughed in the streets, and from every door hung a fluttering black banner. The death had been recent, then, and the people were still in mourning. Dastan dismounted, leaving his horses to stand unattended where he left them as no servant or guard had come out to meet him, and hurried up the marble steps and through the doors as quickly as he could. He left the door standing open as he made straight for the main audience chamber, for that was where a corpse would be laid were one to be in residence, and when he pushed open that heavy door as well he saw…

…Tus, seated on his throne, looking as though he were deep in thought. Or was he asleep? There was a strong smell of roasted meat in the air, as though the occupants of the palace had feasted recently. A funeral feast? Dastan hurried to him, calling his name. “Tus! My brother, what…”

“Ah, you’ve finally arrived.” Tus looked up at him, and the look that was in his eyes stopped Dastan from coming the rest of the way up the steps he had already halfway mounted. “Too late, of course. Our father is dead all this past week.”

Dastan fell back a step, his hand going to his heart. “Our father…! How? Why was I not informed of this?”

“Were you not out playing at defying the laws of Persia, helping your thief ‘ally’ Amar and his band of criminals and cutthroats beat off another band of the same out there in the desert?” Tus accused, although without heat, as though he were merely weary of the subject and it had long since been settled in his mind. “Did you not leave your precious sacred city, your wife and son, unguarded?” He stood up, sneering slightly. “Did you not only ride here because you found your little haven violated, your treasures taken from you, and you sought my help?”

“I rode here because you have traitors in your house – I feared for your safety, and that of your wives and children,” Dastan replied, taken aback by the cruel words and wondering how his brother had known he had been with Amar all the past week. “The one who enabled the kidnapping of Tamina and Sharnan bore your mark. There must be…”

“Traitors in my palace? You already said that. And you are wrong.” Tus stood up, and Dastan saw that he had been worrying a bone between his fingers which he tossed away so that it clattered across the tiles on the floor. “Did you kill my servant?”

“She took her own life to avoid being made to answer questions.” Dastan felt as though the world had turned upside down. “ _Your_ servant? You knew…”

“Of course I knew!” The sudden flash of anger made Dastan back down another step, taking him to the floor of the audience room again. “You fool, it was I who sent her there!”

Something came over Dastan then, a cold knowing. “You took them.” He was not asking, but his brother nodded with a pleased smile, as though happy he had finally understood the situation. “You…you killed our father?”

“Well of course I did – how else was I going to be king?” Tus replied, rolling his eyes – which flashed with anger again as Dastan moved to come up the steps again. “Filth, don’t you dare attempt to mount this dais! It is for those of royal blood only.”

“Aside from the fact that I was adopted by our father and made his son under the laws of Persia…by my marriage to the Princess Tamina I have also been confirmed as royalty.” Dastan cocked his head at him. “Are you become unbalanced in your mind, brother? Shall I send for Garsiv to see what help we may give you – or what justice?” He laid a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Or shall you tell me to where you have spirited away my wife and child, that I might return them to Alamut and leave you unscathed for the time being?”

“Hmm, so their welfare is more important to you than vengeance. What a pity.” Tus stroked his beard again and then he threw back his head and laughed, a high-pitched laugh like that of a child or a hysterical woman, making Dastan draw back from him in horror; his boot slipped on the bone that lay on the floor and he fell, but quickly regained his feet again. “You are too late. I took your princess as my bride two days ago, as was my right, and consummated our union that same hour. And the cub you spawned on her, well,” he waved a hand at the table in the adjoining chamber, where the remains of a meal were still laid out. White bones of a distinct shape were clearly visible above a platter scattered with red scraps, something distorted and yet horribly recognizable by its shape as not belonging to an animal laying at one end of it and staring in his direction with empty sockets. “A lion does not leave the get of the usurper he drives from the pride to run free. And we had run short of young, tender meat for my table, so I ordered the cooks to use what was available.”

Dastan’s face flushed dark with anger…but he was no fool, and he was moving himself backwards as though drawing away in fear or horror in order to escape the room and the madman who had been his elder brother, in order to find help and return for justice. “Where is Garsiv?”

“Where I sent him. He will not return.” Tus laughed again. “Go, run! Run from me! Go find our brother at the Pass of Shamat, and beg his corpse and the vulture-picked remains left of his army for their assistance – you are far too late to save him, even as you were too late to save your beloved wife and child.”

Dastan hesitated, eyes narrowing, and then he turned and bolted out of the room. Tus sent the guards who had been hiding behind pillars at the back of the chamber after him with a careless wave of his hand, laughing for the happy chase they would have and the tortures he would be visiting on them and their families that night when they failed. He knew they could not catch his brother, knew Dastan would soon be on his way to the Pass of Shamat seeking to save Garsiv. He would fail, but in failing he would then seek out the power only he could wield, the wrath of the gods held in the captive Sands of Time.

Tus would be waiting when he returned with it. It would be a fine and useful gift for him, especially as he alone knew how to take it from his brother’s body – or rather, the demon he had become did.

 

Dastan for himself led the guards a desperate chase, using all his skill to evade them and to reach, not the half-dead horses he had left at the palace steps, not the stables where the royal horses would be kept, but to the place where he would find the horses of the soldiers themselves, strong mounts which would have the power and strength to ride hard through the desert to the Pass of Shamat. It took him half an hour and a good deal of luck – and again, he did not use the gift of the Sandglass, for to weaken himself now would be suicide. He left those chasing him in a different part of the city and doubled back, finding enough time to saddle and supply two horses which were in a place to be kept ready should the guard need to ride out at a moment’s notice, and then he fled the city and plunged into the desert with his heart full of rage and misery.

Tus had taken his wife, forced her to his bed. Tus had killed and…and _devoured_ his son.

Tus had killed their father and usurped the throne of Persia. And he had most likely sent Garsiv to his death, along with all the army that had been loyal to Sharaman.

What had happened to his brother? Had he gone mad, had he been taken by a demon, had some poison or drug destroyed his mind and left him a puppet for some unknown evil person to manipulate? And what if he reached Garsiv and found him alive but similarly afflicted? Dastan shivered with a sudden chill as the memories of the betrayal of Nizam swept across his mind. This was a worse nightmare even than that…and what was even more horrible, he knew that in this circumstance there would be no reversing time to prevent the terrible chain of events from happening at all. This time was what he must live with, what they all must live with, for all the future to come.

He would try to save Garsiv. He would find what, if anything, was left of the army, and gather what others he could. And then he would go back to the summer palace and rescue his wife from the monster his brother had become…and after that he would see that Tus paid for his crimes, or died that the world be spared more of his madness, whichever telling was most appropriate after Dastan had buried his sword in his former brother’s heart. Their family would be avenged.


	2. Chapter 2

That night Dastan made a cold camp in a place where he knew he could not be found, using the horses for warmth in place of a fire and forcing himself to eat though it was the last thing he wanted to do; the dried meat he found in the saddlebags he buried in the ground untouched, for even the smell of it turned his stomach. And then he curled up and forced himself to sleep, albeit lightly, until the breeze of the rising sun woke him from nightmares of his wife and son’s torment and he was on his way again.

The next night, he found the bone. He recalled slipping on it and falling to the tiles of the audience chamber, scrambling back to his feet lest the madman posing as his brother fall upon him to murder him while he was at such a disadvantage, and he thought that he must have laid his hand on it and placed it into his pocket without realizing he did so.

It was a finger bone, small enough to be a child’s. He knew in his heart that it was Sharnan’s. Sharnan, his beloved only son, his and Tamina’s gift from the gods which they had named in honor of his father. There were tooth marks in the bone, as though meat had been gnawed from it. Dastan shoved it back into his pocket and threw himself from the side of the horses to be sick, repeatedly, until he had no more left and he was half-lain in the sand shaking as though with a fever. Tears blinded him as he lay there. His son, his beloved son. The horror of it was too much to bear; he felt he would happily end the world if the wrath of the gods would blow all the reality of what had happened away with fire and sand, cleansing the earth of an evil so great it was beyond imagination.

The swirling of the wind finally drew him back to himself; a sandstorm was coming. Dastan contemplated for a moment just lying there and letting it take him, but instinct and the knowledge that he must save his wife and avenge his father made him drag himself back to the horses, moving them closer together and contriving a shelter to keep the sand from killing them. After a time he even slept there between them, exhausted by the weary days of travel with no rest and by crushing grief. When he awoke the storm was still blowing, albeit at this point fitfully blowing itself out, and he lay there in the warm, howling darkness utterly spent and yet strangely calm within himself, as though the storm had taken the turmoil within him and blown it away.

When the dawn broke, making the storm flee before it with the retreating shadows, Dastan rode back onto his course to find Garsiv, if only to be sure that he did not die alone and betrayed. And around his neck, over his heart, hung a braided cord from which depended a small pouch, both of which had been carefully yet hastily constructed from a scrap of his cloak in the bloody light of false dawn. As terrible as this memento was, it might be all that remained of his son and he would not lose it.

It took two more days to reach the Pass of Shamat, a wild place where an army could have hidden unseen for the towering walls of rock and unheard over the wind that howled unceasingly through them. It was a place from which, once entered, there was no retreat.

The bodies of the army were scattered across a slightly rounded open space between two curved cragged walls, almost as though they had fought and died at the bottom of a bottle. Dastan checked all the area around them before dismounting, his sword in his hand, as he did not want to join them in death if some of the enemy which had killed them were still lurking nearby. But although he found signs that a great number of men and horses had been in the area, none were there now, so he went back to the field of battle and began working his way through the bodies. Those which were still alive he murmured encouragement to, those fully dead he covered with their own cloaks that he might tell them apart more easily. And finally he came to Garsiv, who was alive but dying. With careful urgency Dastan shook him until his eyes opened. “Garsiv! My brother, I am here. What happened?”

Garsiv licked dry lips with an even drier tongue. “Tus,” he rasped, and then his eyes widened and he grasped his brother’s arm. “Da-Dastan! It was…”

“It was Tus. I know already.”

But Garsiv was shaking his head back and forth in the sand. “No, no. Not…not Tus. Not Tus!”

Dastan was not sure if his brother meant that some other had planned the massacre of the army, or if he was simply unwilling to believe that Tus had done it. He decided it did not matter. “If not Tus, then who, Garsiv?” he asked. “Who did this? Who killed our father, and sent you to your death?”

Garsiv opened his mouth as though to answer, but then an expression of alarm came across his face and he grasped his brother’s arm in desperation. “B…bo…ook,” he croaked, forcing the word out with his last breath…and then he died there in the sand and did not move again.

Dastan bowed over the body of his brother, offering up a silent prayer to the gods that he might find peace, and then he stood and flipped the cloak over the still body and moved on to the next man lying in the sand.

 

By the time night fell – and in that place it fell early and quickly as the rock walls blocked the sun’s light – Dastan had three men who were injured but might recover lying near a fire he had built for them, four recovered horses tethered nearby with his own two, and the rest of the bodies piled on the other side of the space in preparation for burning. He would not leave them unburied for carrion birds to peck at, but he could not as one man bury them all as he would have liked. And he could not set them afire while he was there with them, as he had a sick horror within him at the idea that they might smell like roasting meat. He spent the rest of that night tending the wounded men and sorting through what he had recovered from the bodies of the dead, making bundles of weapons and supplies which would be loaded onto the spare horse when they rode out of the pass.

Or divided amongst the spare horses, if some of the men he tended did not survive. They all still lived the next morning, however, and only one of them had died by the time the sun had ridden up to hang directly over their heads. Dastan noted the look of the pile of bodies when he added the last man to it and made the other two ready to ride out as quickly as possible, as the pile was already drawing flies and beetles and would soon be unhealthy for them to share the space with. He moved them away first, being careful to choose a direction upwind for them to leave by, and then rode back with a scarf over his face to block the smell and lit the pile afire in four places. He retreated once it was burning all over, gagging at the smell even with the scarf and the wind to help him, and rejoined the two surviving soldiers to lead them on their way in silence. And if for the first hour he clutched something beneath his shirt, they gave no thought to it.

They rode five days to reach Alamut by a way Dastan was relatively certain would not be watched or guarded, and then he scouted the city carefully before he entered it and called the first guard they encountered to tell him all that had happened in his absence and if it was safe for them to enter or if the city had been overtaken. The guard was horrified by the very idea, and told him that they had seen no one in all the time he had been gone, and that no sign had been found of the princess or the young prince in that time either.

“That is because they are not here,” Dastan told him, stopping his hand as it reached once again for the pouch over his heart. “I need all our army gathered and made ready, we must ride out with the morning light.” He cleared his throat. “The king is dead, an usurper as mad as a dog left in the sun all day sits on the throne, and it is he who has our priestess in his grasp. We must rescue her without delay, and once she is safe I will see to dealing out justice to my father’s murderer.”

The guard gasped. “My prince…”

“Go, tell the others,” Dastan ordered. “Have the commanders meet me at the palace that we may plan our strategy, for we will only get one chance to defeat this monster. And seal the city that none might escape it as well, for it was a traitor within the palace who aided in this and there may yet be more of them.” He drew his sword, and reaching down sketched the symbol from the dead serving girl’s arm in the dirt. “You may know some of them by that mark, and if any escape we can expect to be met by a force of arms like to a sea of swords and men which will swallow us up and then drown this city in blood. Do you understand?”

The man nodded, and then darted off. Dastan led his two wounded companions to the palace and yelled loudly for the servants even as he dismounted, and then he roughly checked the arms of all who came to his aid for the damning mark before he allowed them to so much as approach. Only one he found with it, and that one hanging back, and he killed him there on the steps with one swing of his sword and bared the mark for all to see. “This is the mark of a traitor,” he announced loudly. “The master those so marked serve is the one who took the Princess Tamina and our son; deal with any you find in any way you see fit, for they serve a madman and have quite possibly taken his madness as their own. Have no doubt that they will kill you if given the chance.” He waved at the two soldiers who were being helped down from the horses. “Care for these men as though they were members of our family in my absence. They were in service to my brother Garsiv, who is now dead, and now they are ours to care for.”

One of the soldiers took a shaky step towards him. “My prince, we would go with you! We should be there to avenge the death of our general, and the king!”

The servants gasped. Dastan moved to his side and placed a hand on his trembling shoulder. “I know you wish to, as I would in your place,” he said with great sympathy. “But you would not survive to reach the summer palace, given how hard we will have to ride and how little rest we will take along the way. Instead, I will give you a task you may complete alive: Guard the palace, and my city, until either I or the Princess Tamina return to it. I will leave you enough guards to watch if not to fight, and order you to take our people and flee to the south and east to the City of Golden Plumes and Sheikh Amar if the army that returns is not the one that left.”

“I know of that city,” the soldier said, bowing as best he could. “My prince, it will be done as you command.”

“Go rest now, let the servants care for you that you might be strong enough to do as I command,” Datsan told him with the slightest of smiles, and he gestured for the servants to take he and his companion inside. He then gave orders for the horses to be taken and cared for, and finally he mounted the steps of the palace himself with a heavy tread, although there was purpose in his tired eyes. They had an attack to plan, and they must ride out at dawn.


	3. Chapter 3

Dastan slept in his war room that night, first upon his cloak as he might do in the open desert, but later upon a pallet that the servants brought in for his use and insisted that he lie upon before they would leave him alone. He noticed that all of the servants now had their sleeves rolled or pushed up above their elbows that it might be seen that they did not bear the mark of Tus, and he was relieved enough by it to sleep more soundly than he might have otherwise. But still he woke before the dawn, and ate sparingly of what the servants brought to him – except for the meat, which he refused with a pale face and shaking hand – and then he hastily cleaned himself and put on fresh garments, although he kept his same cloak though it was rent near the hem on one side and the servants were desirous of replacing it with one that was whole. He joined his small army in the saddle directly and led them out of the city, and he was pleased to look back and see that the gates were being sealed behind them and that guards were already posted to watch.

It had taken Dastan two days of almost ceaseless riding to reach the summer palace, but with the force he now rode with, although it was a small one, relatively speaking, the journey now took three and they did not go directly to the small city of the palace but stopped nearby and split themselves into several smaller groups that they might approach from several directions and thus increase their chances of having at least some of them reach the palace unchallenged and therefore with more chance of success in their mission. For Dastan had made it plain to them that the first and most important thing they must do, and that at any cost, was to rescue the Princess Tamina from her captor and get her back to Alamut, or failing that to the City of Golden Plumes. Even he himself had sworn that his revenge for the deaths of his father and brother would wait if it meant retrieving his wife without further harm coming to her, and his commanders had agreed with him that it should be done as he commanded.

The black flags were still fluttering forlornly over the city when they approached, and all was still silent and still – too silent and still, and it was not only Dastan who feared what that could mean. He had chosen to enter the palace by a back way rather than joining the frontal assault on the steps which was meant to take the audience chamber, going in through the kitchens where the servants would come and go as they went about their work. The smell of roasting meat assaulted his nose as he drew near, and he hastily choked back the bile that rose in his throat and pulled up his scarf to cover his nose and mouth against the stench of it. No servants were about in the outer courtyard, or near the well, and very little noise could be heard from inside. Still, he led his three men stealthily to the door, and then when he was certain he could not hear the sounds of shifting, waiting soldiers, he led them inside.

The sight that met their eyes was one so unbelievably horrible that two of them choked and one was quietly sick there on the blood-stained floor. Every surface in the room, even to the four walls, was splattered and stained with blood, as though a butcher had been at work for days or weeks there. And the servants in the kitchen, gaunt and hollow-eyed and silent, were chained to their respective workplaces as one might chain a dog to keep it from straying away from the flocks it is meant to guard. Those hollow, dead eyes turned to take in the intruders but only the faintest flickers of hope arose in them; only one pair of eyes did not turn, and those belonged to the woman chained to the hearth, who sat blank-eyed turning the roasting spit with a blackened hand and bloodied back. The cause of her state was plain to see, for the shape of the meat on the spit was unmistakeably that of a human infant which had been pierced as one might spit a rabbit.

One swipe of Dastan’s sword took the woman’s head from her shoulders, and her body fell forward into the fire. He then approached one of the others, a man who might once have been in charge of this kitchen and all who worked in it. “Will you aid us?” he asked quietly. “Or shall I release you another way?”

The man blinked at him, and then shook his head and took in a deep, gasping breath. “We will help you,” he rasped, sounding as though he had been screaming himself hoarse for days if not weeks. “But you must promise to let us die afterward. We cannot live, we are defiled beyond redemption.”

Dastan motioned one of his men to remove the chains that bound him, and the others as well. “I understand, and I agree,” he said, resisting the urge to touch the man to convey his sympathy, as he could see that the man had been severely beaten and to do so would no doubt cause him immense pain. “Do you know where the Princess Tamina is being kept?”

The man nodded. “Above us, in the chambers where the wives are kept.” He blinked again and dashed a hand across his eyes, looking away. “There are no children there now, not anymore.”

“Thank you,” Dastan told him, with earnest sincerity. “Go to your rest knowing that you could not have stopped this – no one could have – but that it will be stopped now.”

“Thank you,” the man told him. “May the blessing of the gods go with you, my prince, that this evil take no more from you than it has already.”

Dastan just nodded, and then motioned his men to accompany him and left the kitchen through the door the man indicated. It was a back passage, one the servants would use to ascend into the palace carrying food or drink or water from the well in the courtyard, and using it they should be able to gain entrance to the wives’ part of the palace unseen and unheard. Still, though, they went carefully and as silently as they could.

Finally they reached the correct part of the palace, which Dastan recognized by the carved screens that served instead of doors and which kept the male servants from seeing or being seen by the wives when things were brought to them. They crept from one screen to another cautiously, but nothing could be seen moving and so they slowly moved out into the open and began to check the rooms. The first and largest was empty, as was the second, but in the third was a terrible sight which made Dastan realize what his brother Garsiv had been trying to tell him before he had been taken by death. Because there were two bodies in this room, one alive and one dead.

The dead one was Tus. He had been stabbed through the heart, most likely in his sleep if the light garments he had been wearing were anything to go by, and his decaying body still lay exactly as it had in the moment the deed had been done. Dastan swallowed but was somewhat relieved by the sight; it was not his brother committing these atrocities, it was a demon wearing his face, and Tus had most likely never known even that he was being killed. The knife still in his chest had symbols burned into the handle and looked to be carved from bone, and there were remnants of some ritual scattered about the room but mostly concentrated in the area where the other occupant slept. Dastan recognized her, and his face hardened. “His third wife,” he whispered to his men, and then he was across the room with a dagger in his hand which he pressed to her throat and thus woke her from her sleep. She blinked at him much as the man in the kitchen had, but Dastan could see by her eyes that she was not shocked to near senselessness but rather drugged to a happy stupor; she even smiled to see him. “Prince Mudblood,” she slurred. “You have come for a visit! But your brother is indisposed to see you – I cannot get him out of my bed!”

Here she went off into laughter, which cut off abruptly when Dastan replaced the dagger at her throat with his hand and squeezed until she was choked into silence. “Did you do this?” he demanded in a near whisper. “Did you murder my brother and summon that flesh-eating abomination to take his place?”

She tried to laugh again, but it came out as a cough. “I did,” she answered, still happily. “I wished…my son to be king, so those others and their bastards had to be dealt with. And he has taken my son and is…teaching him to rule by his side…so busy that he cannot even come to see me here as I guard the shell that makes the il-llusion remain. But he sends me meat, so much fine meat…”

Dastan glanced over at the place to which her hand waved vaguely, and saw what he expected to see. “You hold the spell, by guarding the body,” he hissed. “And what must not be done if the illusion is to remain in place?”

“The dagger…” she began, and then her eyes sharpened with a flash of returning clarity of mind and she opened her mouth to shout or scream…and Dastan’s dagger slit her throat before the least sound could come from her. He stood up, wiping the dagger clean on her soiled clothing before replacing it in his belt. “Thank you,” he told the corpse, and then looked back at the dagger in his dead brother’s chest before moving his men to the door again. He pulled one aside to stand guard there. “We must find Tamina first,” he instructed. “For the moment the spell is broken, the demon below will know we are here and come for us. As soon as my wife is ready to be removed from this house of horrors we will pull the dagger from Tus’s corpse and flee the palace the same way we came in.” He thougth of something else. “Should we be interrupted, remove the dagger yourself and take it with you out of the palace and all the way to Alamut if you must – the demon must not be allowed to retrieve it.” The soldier nodded his agreement and faded back into the room, to a spot where he could see but not easily be seen, and Dastan took the other two further into the women's chambers to search for his wife.

Most of the rooms they looked into were empty, and some were splashed about on the walls and furnishings with blood; in a few others were women barely recognizable as the beauties Tus had taken for his wives, blank-eyed from being drugged and chained by the ankle to their beds as a rebellious slave might be, surrounded by filth. Dastan was moved by their condition but did not stop to help them; he was fairly certain that they could not be helped, and only hoped he did not find his own wife in such a state as well.

In that, the gods were with him. Tamina was in the last room, and also chained to her bed, still dressed in rich bridal clothes which were torn and bloody in ways that made rage boil inside of him, and when he went to one knee beside her and woke her she at once screamed and did her best to attack him. Her scream set the others to screaming as well, although theirs were mindless echoes, and Dastan immediately reversed time and approached her again, this time placing his hand over her mouth as soon as he was near enough to touch her. She came awake struggling like a wild thing and bit his hand, but he whispered in her ear and after a moment recognition came into her eyes and she threw herself at him sobbing.

Dastan held her, tight against his chest, and nodded to one of his men to remove the chain from her ankle. He looked around the room, not quite smiling to see a stain on the wall that was not from blood but from the juices of cooked meat, and the meat itself dried and rotten on the floor. He stroked her hair, pride welling within him. She had fought, and even still she fought. The demon wearing the face of Tus had not broken her as he had the others. So soon as the chain was released, he pushed her back just enough to look into her eyes, letting her see his pride and his love, his hands gentle as he held her. “Can you walk?” he asked in a whisper. “We must leave this place as quickly as we can, before we are caught.”

She swallowed, but nodded. “Tus…”

“Not Tus, a demon,” he corrected. “His third wife killed him in his bed, and a demon wears his face now.”

“I know, I saw,” she told him, and swallowed again convulsively. “When they brought me here, he…he showed me.”

“Oh my love,” Dastan said, drawing her back to his chest again for a moment more and holding her tightly as though to take all the horror she had experienced into himself. “We must get out of this place, there is no time. I will come back for the demon, although we will take his stolen face from him before we go.” She gained her feet with his aid, shaking but holding her own weight, and he put her under his arm to make sure she did not falter and began to take them back down the length of the chamber. “Don’t look into the rooms,” he warned. “There is nothing we can do for those few poor broken creatures who remain, and I killed the treacherous third wife with my own hand.”

Tamina nodded but remained silent, and she hid her eyes against her husband as they made their way as quickly as possible down to the third room. There Dastan looked within and nodded to let the man there know it was time, and then moved with all haste for the carved screens which concealed the passage used by the servants. Scarce had they reached them when a horrible shriek filled the air, seeming to rise up from the very stones beneath their feet. Clutching his wife tightly, Dastan plunged into the narrow stairway and made them decend at a frightening rate, although he paused at the foot of the stairs and allowed one of the men with him to go out first. The man signaled that all was clear, and Dasan at once swept his cloak over Tamina’s head so that she could not see and fairly dragged her through the room beyond and out in to the fresh air.

They were some distance away before he uncovered her head again, and she saw that he was pale and somewhat green, and still swallowing rapidly as though he were trying not to be sick – as one of his men was already doing some little distance away while the others, looking no better, watched in every direction as though they expected to be attacked at any moment. Her husband regained control of himself first, however, and motioned to the others to continue in the direction he indicated…and in a span of half an hour they had come to the place where their horses were waiting and with a quick check to make sure neither the animals nor their saddles had been tampered with, they were riding with all speed away from the summer palace that had once belonged to Tus, crown prince of the Persian Empire.

Tamina did not know how long they rode, feeling as though she were half in a dream and knowing only that her husband was bearing her away from the horrors which had befallen her since her abduction from their very chambers in the palace of Alamut. She roused a little when he abruptly pulled his mount to a stop, though, and became aware of an argument going on between he and the three men he rode with. “No,” he was saying, and that with some firmness. “It must be me – I wish with all my heart that it did not have to be, but this is a demon of unknown power and none of you are equipped with the knowledge necessary to defeat him and live. You will take the princess back to Alamut and see that she is safe and well cared for until I return.”

“And if you do not?” one of the soldiers questioned. “My prince, if you do not return, what shall we tell her? What shall we tell the entire city?”

“And what shall we do if the demon rides into Alamut in the days that follow wearing your face?” another asked. “At the very least, one of us must ride with you that we may convey the tale of what has happened back to the princess and the city if you fall.”

Dastan was silent for a long moment, and then she felt him nod once, sharply. “You are right, it would be better if I did not go alone for exactly the reason you speak of. I was concerned that two might not be enough if you encountered trouble along the way, especially as none of the rest of our army have joined us yet. Do any of you know the _Vendidad_?”

“I do, ” said the second man who had spoken. “Not the whole of it, but after the Hassansin I learned what I could. You know how to defeat this demon?”

“No,” Dastan admitted, but he smiled and pulled something well-wrapped in oiled leather from his saddlebag. “But we will find the way in here; I took it from Garsiv’s belongings when I found him dying at the Pass of Shamat, he has carried a copy of it with him ever since we first fought the Hassansin, and with his last breath he spoke of it although at that time I could not be sure what his meaning was.” He handed it over. “Read while we rest the horses, and I will speak to my wife that she may be calm to make the journey home without me.”

The three soldiers agreed to this, and they all dismounted and drew their horses into what concealment they could find before clustering around the _Vendidad_ in hopes of finding an answer which would save their prince from death at the hands of the demon. Dastan meanwhile took his wife down from his horse in his arms and carried her some little distance away that they might speak privately. “My love, I must leave you for a time,” he said, stroking back her tangled hair. “I cannot allow this monster to live, he will prey on…others if he is not stopped.”

“He will prey on children,” she said, looking him in the eye. “As he preyed on ours.”

“I saw what he did – he showed it to me when I came to find you and found instead a monster wearing my brother’s face and the black flags flying for the death of my father more than a week previous.” Dastan took a deep breath. “Tamina, you know why I must be the one to go. His powers may be weakened now, or they may be unbound entirely; it is possible that I am the only man in all of Persia who has the least chance of stopping him.”

She grasped his arm. “He wants your power. He thought you would go to the Sandglass, and that you would bring the power back that he might take it from you.”

“I wanted to go to the Sandglass,” he admitted, his hand raising as though to touch something beneath his clothing but then dropping away again before he could. “I wished to end the world to make the horror go away, but I knew that I could not, for I had to see that Garsiv did not die alone…and I knew I must rescue you and avenge the death of our son, as well as the death of my father and brother.” He trailed a gentle finger down her cheek, pulling away the tear that streaked there with the caress. “That is a promise I still must keep, my love.”

“I know.” She threw herself back into his arms. “Please, please come back to me,” she whispered, the tears now coming thick and fast. “Please don’t leave me alone again.”

“If it is at all within my power, I will return to you,” he vowed, and then held her and murmured of his love until she was soothed against her will into a restful sleep.

When she finally awoke again, she was on the back of a horse with the strong but cautious arm of one of the soldiers holding her in place, riding towards Alamut and wrapped warmly in her husband’s torn cloak.


	4. Chapter 4

Dastan felt his heart break every time he recalled the sight of his love, his princess, held in the arms of one of his trusted soldiers and wrapped in his own cloak, riding away from him toward Alamut, hopefully toward safety. He recalled himself to the business at hand, though, knowing that were he to remain so distracted and even distraught he would be easy pickings for the demon and his grieving wife would wait in vain for his return – or worse, she would see him return only to find a demon in his place and the horror would begin again in Alamut as it had begun in the summer palace of Tus. They thought they had found the proper way to stop the demon and banish it, if not outright destroy it…and what a horror all in itself that had been, for the book had said that only if the demon devoured a child which was a blessing of the gods could it be destroyed.

The gods had given them a son only to be a sacrifice to evil. Dastan pushed that thought from his mind as well, knowing that later he would rant and rail at the gods for their cruelty, but that now he needed to keep their favor as he was apparently the Champion they had chosen to remove such a great evil from the world. He went over the words of the ritual in his head, and knew that Farid, the soldier who had come with him, was doing the same; if one of them were struck down and unable to finish, the other certainly would do so and thus the demon would be destroyed no matter what. For they knew now that they could not let it live, as the _Vendidad_ said that it could indeed take another face to hide behind, and that even if it did not its appetite for the young would drive it from atrocity to atrocity until it were finally stopped. This was truly a task which could not be delayed by men of good conscience, although even lesser ones may have balked at allowing the demon to continue as well. And so they rode on, quickly and this time by the route which would take them directly into the city and straight to the front of the palace, the same route Dastan himself had taken on his first visit.

This time they did not slow when they entered the city, even though bodies were strewn on the ground around the dark and silent buildings and in some places fighting still continued as the soldiers of Alamut strove against those of Tus. Dastan put his horse to the side of the palace steps, motioning Farid to do the same, and then kept the other man behind him and to the side as they ascended into the palace over stairs that were stained with blood and strewn with bodies as well. The gruesome trail led directly into the audience chamber, from which came a din of a battle in progress and over it the high-pitched hysterical laughter of the demon. Farid hid himself to the side of the great doors as they had planned, and then Dastan threw them open and stalked into the audience chamber with rage radiating from him. “Demon, I challenge you!”

The fighting in the chamber fell silent; every eye was upon him. And from where it lounged on the throne atop the bloodstained dais, the demon smiled with sharp teeth and fathomless black eyes, its face a ruin of decay. “Why if it isn’t the little ‘prince’ of Persia,” it purred. “I thought you had fled with my newest wife, like the blood-filth you are; will you raise my get too, once it bursts from her belly?”

Dastan drew his sword, ignoring his words with an effort; he knew they were meant to enrage him, to cause him to falter and make mistakes which could be exploited. And he almost smiled, for obviously the demon had taken the face of Tus but not his mind, for if it had it should have known that it was using a tactic which could not succeed. “Do you accept my challenge, or do you wish a chance to run like the low, cowardly creature you are? Or would you be crawling on your belly to escape?”

The demon rose up from the throne like a serpent uncoiling, and it drew a sword which it twirled playfully in its hand. “I will fight, but only to amuse myself and entertain those who present who would take a rest from their own battle to watch you die. I am invincible, I cannot be defeated.” Dastan merely shook his head and stepped back, muttering something under his breath. “What was that, a prayer to your gods?” the demon taunted. “They will not aid you here.”

“You might be surprised,” Dastan told him, and then the demon leaped forward and the fight was on. It was brutal, as the demon had the strength of many men and was wild and gleeful in its fighting, and their battle raged all across the chamber to such an extent that several times soldiers on both sides were forced to move out of their way or be cut down – and some few were cut down by the demon, men of his own army who moved too slowly in the false belief that their master would not kill them.

Slowly, though, the fight began to become more even. The demon was slowing, as though he were tiring, and although Dastan was slowing too he still pressed on and seemed to be taking little damage from the fight. In truth, that was not because he was reversing time, which he wasn’t, but because the demon although strong and quick was not the best of fighters and so was not able to score as many hits as Dastan himself was. And Dastan continued to mutter under his breath, just beneath the volume at which the demon could understand the words being spoken, and he kept his smile as the demon taunted him about praying to his gods. He continued to harry the demon back, driving it and keeping it in the center of the room and away from the soldiers – and their weapons and their help, which he most definitely did not want it to gain – and with relief he reached the final words of the ritual and shouted them aloud that all the room might hear.

The demon leaped back, taking himself halfway up the steps even though he lost his footing and fell upon them instead of remaining on his feet. His face was suffused with rage, and he waved a hand at his watching soldiers. “Kill him, kill him!” he shrieked, and they rushed forward to do his bidding, brushing aside the opposing soldiers they had been fighting as though they were no longer of any consequence.

Dastan raised his sword and leaped for the dais himself; the demon was now able to be killed, but he had seen the faces of the soldiers, seen their blank glassy eyes and known that they were being controlled by the demon, which meant that to stop the fighting the demon alone was what needed to be stopped. The demon crawled away from him, scrambling to its feet, and he chased it to the top of the dais and faced it there. “For all the evil you have done,” he said, and then swung with all his might.

And his sword passed through the demon as though through water, and the demon laughed. Too late Dastan saw the markings on the marble platform and realized that the demon had led him to a place where it could not be harmed by him…and just as he saw it a thrown dagger sank into his arm and his sword fell to the floor. Instinctively he reversed time…

…And nothing happened. The demon laughed. “Not in here, boy,” it said, and another dagger was thrown; this one sank into his leg, and he went to one knee as the leg would no longer support his weight. The markings on the floor were very close, and he thought that he might be able to rub them out but then another dagger was coming and he threw himself out of its path that would have most likely hit his other arm and in doing so rolled off the top of the dais and down the marble steps. Luckily instinct was still with him, for with his last shred of consciousness he reversed time.

The Sands of Time burned within and without him, and the wounds in his arm and leg burned as well, and the were still burning when he time began to flow forward again and he found himself once more at the foot of the steps with the blank-eyed soldiers coming at him and the demon smirking at him from where it was sprawled on the steps – sprawled deliberately, he could see now, and although he could still feel the wound in his shoulder even it was not visible he raised his sword again.

The demon looked at him, then rolled to its feet and laughed. “So it does work,” it said. “How many times did I hit you, boy? I know you can feel them, I see the pain in your eyes and in the way your hand shakes as you hold your sword. Do the wounds burn from the touch of the Sand?” It shook its head, tsking with fake sorrow. “Oh, you will have some trouble fighting now, won’t you? I must have disabled you, and your little trick with time will not change that. Pity I didn’t get your head, but it will be more amusing this way as I kill you slowly and then drain the power of the Sands from your body with your blood.”

“That’s what you think,” Dastan growled, and started back up the stairs, only to falter badly as his formerly injured leg informed him that the demon’s words had been correct. Curious, he brushed his free hand down toward the invisible injury…and encountered the handle of an invisible dagger; with a grim smile he yanked it free and in the same motion threw it at the demon. It hit and sank in, and the demon cursed. Dastan pulled free the dagger in his arm and threw it as well, but missed. He reversed time but a few seconds and threw it again, but with better aim this time, and the demon clutched its stomach and fell over, trying to claw its way to the top of the dais and the safety of its magical sanctuary there. Dastan forced himself to mount the steps, circling around the demon that it might not kick out its legs and trip him, and then he raised his sword and yelled out, “Farid!”

And Farid came rushing into the chamber at his call, sword in one hand sweeping the controlled soldiers out of his way and the bone dagger that had been used to kill Crown Prince Tus and summon the demon in the other. He sprang up the steps and plunged the dagger into the demon’s chest, and then immediately dropped his sword and threw himself over his faltering prince, pushing him away from the demon while keeping him from falling down the steps again. The demon screamed and wailed and cursed, and its body dissolved into a noisome, hissing puddle which ran down the steps and burned several confused and frightened soldiers who were standing there, leaving them screaming and burning on the floor as it flowed past, eating a path in the marble as it went.

Farid helped his prince turn and sit on the steps, taking his sword from him and moving quickly to bind up the two wounds which were now bleeding freely. Dastan allowed his ministrations, knowing that he could very easily die still if the wounds were not attended to at once, but he waved his good hand and called out strongly, “It is over! The demon is dead!”

The soldiers of Alamut as well as those of the summer palace who had resumed fighting cautiously lowered their weapons and looked at him in confusion, and he shook his head. “It is over,” he repeated. “Tus, the crown prince of Persia, my brother, was killed many weeks ago – his body is in his third wife’s chamber, for it was she who killed him and summoned the demon to take his place. The demon is now gone, banished, hopefully destroyed. Those of you who are loyal to your master, who was Tus and not a vile flesh-eating demon wearing his face…lower your arms and look around you.” He swallowed. “Go down…down to the kitchens or up to the women's chambers if you require more proof than that vile liquid burning its way through the floor before us. Look on these horrors while you may, for before I leave this place I plan to burn this city to the ground and let the desert take it back to itself that the abominations within these walls be buried forever where no man might find them. Go, look while you still can, if you must.”

Some few of the soldiers looked at each other and ran from the room, and soon afterwards a great wailing was heard. Three others came to the foot of the dais and dropped to their knees, heads bowed and shaking. Dastan, who was feeling none too strong himself, looked at them with pity. “You ate at his table.”

“Yes, my prince,” one man croaked, not raising his eyes. “We ate the meat of his table, and we…we procured it for him and took it to the kitchens.”

The man beside him looked up. “Please, we beg of you…put us to death. No man can live with the burden of what we have done.”

“What the demon made you do,” Dastan corrected, but he forced himself to his feet and with Farid’s arm to lean upon made his way down the few steps to stand before him. “I grant you the mercy of a swift death,” he said, and drew his sword and beheaded them as they knelt there. “The rest of you,” he called to the remaining men in the room. “Do you know, did any survive the appetites of the demon? Do any heirs to the throne of Persia still live?”

“One of the wives of Tus did not travel to the summer palace,” one of the soldiers said. “He – the demon – had made plans to travel back to the capital as normal, and planned also to find her there.”

“She was said to have had a son,” another man said. “He would be but a babe in arms now…but he is the heir of Persia.”

Dastan nodded. “And in the capital he will be safe and well cared for, and my father’s advisors will doubtless choose a regent to guide the empire until he is of age to take the throne.” He looked hard at them. “You do not wail, or run, or beg for death.”

One of them shrugged, sheathing his sword. “It was the demon, not ourselves – you spoke that truth yourself to those who chose death over defilement.”

“And you do not.” Dastan’s face hardened, and he nodded to his own men; and all of those soldiers of the summer palace who stood in the room were killed on the spot. “You were just as much a monster, then, for no man could bear such a burden on his soul with but a shrug of his shoulders, as though his actions did not touch him. Men, set this place aflame with every drop of oil you can find, and if anything lives within this palace…kill it.”

There was a murmur of agreement, and then most of the soldiers scattered to do his bidding. Leaning on Farid, Dastan limped his way out of the palace and made his way down the palace steps. “We should fire the houses as well,” he told the other man as he pulled himself up onto his waiting horse. “If any remain who have not fled this evil…they deserve to burn, or to scratch through the ashes that remain like beetles in dung when all else is gone.”

“As you say it,” Farid agreed, mounting his own horse much more easily than his prince had and leading them away from the palace, careful to keep the horses from the rivulet of noisome ichor which was now smoking as it fought being subdued by the thirsty sands. They rode through the small city, much of which was already afire, and at Dastan’s instruction several times Farid dismounted and set fire himself to a house or a pile of straw or wood. Already behind them black smoke was pouring from the upper windows of the summer palace and white smoke from the lower, and soldiers were driving what horses and other innocent creatures they had found out of the city that they might not be burned alive or starve.

Dastan rode as though in a waking dream. Twice more he reversed time, once when a crazed woman burst from behind the door of her home and attacked Farid with a knife, and another when a piece of burning wood fell on him, and each time he did so he felt the burning of his wounds all the more. But he stayed in the saddle, and rode out of the city, and waited for his men to gather with him – upwind, as none of them who knew some of what was burning wanted the smell of it to reach them. And once all were gathered, he directed them to remove themselves some distance away and set a camp, that they might watch the city burn and make sure that nothing had been missed which might escape from it; the men with the animals he sent on ahead back to Alamut, as they would not be able to travel as quickly. And then he sat atop his horse and watched the city burn until the burning of his wounds overcame him and he knew no more.

He awoke as night was falling, and found that his wounds had been rebound while he slept, although on standing he discovered that his head was still light, most likely from loss of blood and lack of sleep over the past weeks, as well as from reversing time on several occasions just in the past day. But still he rose from the bed that had been made for him and exited the tent, and the first sight that his eyes found was the burning city of the summer palace, which looked like a bonfire of giants set against the deepening blue backdrop of the coming night sky. The next sight that his eyes found was Farid, who appeared at his side and quickly brought him to a seat at the fire and offered him tea and dried fruit; none of the men were eating the dried meat they usually carried as part of their travel rations, Dastan noticed, and was thankful for it as he knew he could not have borne the sight or smell of it, nor was he likely to do so for quite some time to come. He did indeed feel better after eating, however, well enough even that he was able to question his men thoroughly about what they had seen and even make notes of it on a scrap of parchment which he tucked into the relevant section of Garsiv’s copy of the _Vendidad_ , resolving to add his own, more detailed account to it after reaching Alamut. He sat beside the fire for some time more, letting his presence reassure his men as mere words would not be able to, and then he took his leave of them and went back to his bed that he might be well-rested enough to begin the journey back to Alamut in the morning.

He awoke again in the dead of night, shaking, although he did not cry out, and quickly got up from his bed to put his traveling garments on before sliding out of the tent. The moon was a slender crescent in the lower part of the sky, and at some time in the night the wind had shifted and was now carrying the faint but pungent tang of the smoke from the burning city over their camp; he held his arm over his stomach until the urge to retch had passed, and then continued on to where the horses had been tethered and began readying his own mount. There was something he needed to do, and it could not wait.

It was perhaps not surprising that one of his men saw him and challenged him, or that Farid came and attempted to coax and reason with him in order to get him back to his tent. Dastan knew he could not explain to them what he had to do, although he did continue to insist that he must do it without delay. The argument began to become more violent as his agitation grew, but just when he was on the point of drawing his sword and driving them off, strong arms came around him from behind and held on no matter how he struggled. A deep voice spoke into his ear. “Dastan, you will not do this.”

“I must!”

“No, you must not and you will not.” Sheikh Amar tightened his hold. “Dastan, it is not so bad as it seems, and I believe that the demon still whispers to you through the wounds he inflicted with his cursed weapons. They still burn, do they not?”

“Yes.” Dastan stopped struggling and looked up at his friend, still in such a state that he was not in the least surprised to find him there in a place he could not have been expected to be. “But…Tamina.” Tears started in his eyes. “He…he did not just violate her, he impregnated her with his spawn – it was the reason why he did not kill her outright, or drug her into submission like the others. She was to bear his heir.”

“She will not,” Amar assured him, although he did not loosen his hold; he well knew how tricky Dastan could be. “Your princess will bear no demon spawn, I promise you. You trust me, do you not?”

Dastan sagged in his hold; his wounds were burning unbearably. “Yes, but…”

“No buts. I have brought a healer who knows about such things, and more men and horses if we have need of them besides. I have left more who know what they are about in your palace with your princess, and Seso there as well to guard her as you would yourself. But now we must see to you, that Alamut might not lose its prince just as they have gotten used to having one – and that I might not lose a friend I value.” He tugged the younger man in the direction of the tent and saw him into it, putting him to bed as a father might a child. He then called in the healer and watched as the wounds were unwrapped, revealing them swollen and weeping foul fluid rather than cleanly scabbing over as they should have been. “Poison?”

“Yes,” the healer said, and at once issued orders for clean water that he might wash the wounds clean and hot water that he might steep strong herbs. “And sand in the wounds, just as you suspected.”

“Just as I feared,” Amar corrected, standing up and taking himself out of the tent. He clapped a hand on Farid’s shoulder. “You could not have known.”

“I am very glad that you did, and that you arrived in time to stop him,” Farid replied. “Where was he trying to go?”

Amar looked grim. “He was going to end the world, that his wife not be forced to bear the spawn of the demon,” he answered. But then he shook it off and forced himself to smile. “The poison affected him, doubtless he recalled the taunts of the demon in his nightmares and woke to believe them real and true. But he should be fine tomorrow once his wounds are cleaned and the fever has left him, although he may be somewhat weak and we may need to stop more frequently on our way back to Alamut.” And then he took his leave of Farid and began organizing the soldiers of Alamut along with his own men that they might keep a better watch and be ready to ride out with the dawn. For he did not believe that any of them should tarry where the smell of the smoke of the summer palace still hung in the air.

It was not until the moon had began its descent on the other side of the sky that he went back to the tent and made himself rest, and allowed himself to shudder at how close a call they had really had. For had he and his men been delayed by even half an hour more, had he not been there in time to stop Dastan from leaving, it was possible that by the rising of the second moon the wrath of the gods would have been upon them and the whole world been consumed by it.

When Dastan next awoke, Amar was sitting beside him. Dastan looked at him in puzzlement. “You…”

“Word reached me, I gathered my men and came to the aid of Alamut,” the older man told him. “How many times, Dastan? How many times since you were pierced by the demon’s cursed daggers did you use the power of the Sandglass?”

“Three.” Dastan shut his eyes, and his brow wrinkled. “No, four – I had to save Farid when part of a burning roof fell onto him, and I was not able to leave my horse to go to his aid.” He rubbed his arm, which was newly bandaged and still burning slightly. “I could feel…”

“Your wounds were full of burning sand,” Amar told him. “Each time you used the Mark you bear, the curse on the daggers trapped Sand within the wounds where it burned away like poison.” He leaned forward and made the younger man look him in the eye. “No more, Dastan, not until you are fully healed – no matter what comes upon us or who you might save by going against my advice in this. Do you understand? You will sit on your horse and let others fight for you, you may even draw your own sword, if you can, and fight beside us, but you may not use the power that burns within you if you want to live.”

Dastan blinked at him, and Amar saw the shadows of the horrors he had seen – and those he still feared – in his eyes. “Should I live? Does my wife…”

“Your wife is taken care of, she will bear no demon’s spawn,” Amar assured him. “I have healers, ones who know things yours in the palace daren’t even dream of. The princess will most likely heal more quickly than you will, and that is no bad thing, for caring for you will make her heal all the more quickly – her mind, not her body.”

His eyes said he was certain of this, there was no doubt in them, and after a moment of searching and not finding Dastan relaxed back into the cot with a sigh. “I had thought…I had thought that I had seen how bad things could be,” he said. “Losing all my family, being betrayed by my uncle, seeing death of all I loved all around me…seeing the wrath of the gods bearing down upon the world and destroying all that it encountered. But those visions were nothing to what I have seen in a single day within the house of horrors which was once my brother’s pretty summer palace.”

“So your men have said.” Amar leaned back and made himself comfortable again. “I would hear it from you. And now is a good time, as I know you will not sleep for a time, and I am not near to sleeping either. Your men are not so near that they can hear us.” Dastan threw his uninjured arm across his eyes, and Amar nodded to himself. “Perhaps you can start by telling me what you carry in the pouch which hangs around your neck. It looks as though you made it from a piece torn from your cloak – the cloak your wife uses now to wrap herself in against both the cold and the sun.”

A sound broke from Dastan’s chest that was nearly a sob. “It is…all that is left of our son.” He sat up, hissing as the movement pulled at the wound on his leg, and stared at his hands. “He was dead when I arrived here, the first time. The demon had…” he swallowed, “The demon had devoured him, the way a man might devour a roasted lamb. The…carcass was still on his table, but this single bone he had been gnawing on and had cast away.” He wrapped his hand around the pouch tightly. “I did not even know I had picked it up from the floor, not until I found it in my pocket days later. I might have left my sanity there in the desert…but this small thing, the only thing I now have left of our blessed child, recalled me to my duty to protect others from that which I could not protect him from.”

“Will you bury it?”

Dastan nodded, and looked at him. “Yes. At home in Alamut. None need know what happened, it is a story too terrible to be spread amongst the general populace.”

“You’re right, it is.” In truth, Amar thought that if he were to allow himself to dwell on the story he might well become sick; he also thought that must be the reason why his young friend looked half starved, doubtless he had been unable to stomach much since that terrible day. He had heard about the demon’s proclivity for eating the young from the other men in the camp, of course, but to see one’s own son rendered to a half-eaten ‘carcass’ on the table of one wearing the face of your eldest brother…it was unimaginable, a thing as terrible as that. Amar gathered his thoughts, though, and put his natural reaction to the side; his young friend needed him now. The princess was shattered, but she could be mended – in truth, having her husband come into the house of horrors to rescue her, having him hold her close to him and comfort her with no sign of disdain or disgust, those things were mending her already. But if he were to take Dastan back to Alamut with all of those horrors and more which he would never share with her an unshared burden upon his mind and heart, the healing for the prince of Alamut would never take place, and would in time cause the wounds suffered by his princess to reopen and fester. “Tell me more,” he said, and made sure the startled Dastan could see by his eyes that he was in _asha_ and meant what he asked. “Tell me all of it, and leave nothing out.”

Dastan looked at him for a long moment, reading the truth in his eyes, and then he relaxed again, letting go of the pouch and cradling his wounded arm, and began to tell his tale.


	5. Chapter 5

Four days later, they returned to the city of Alamut and were challenged by the guards who still manned the closed gates; but Dastan and Amar rode to the front of the line and assured them that all the evils they had ridden after had been had been burned and would not be crossing the desert to assault their city, and the gates were thrown open with deafening cheer to allow them to ride in victorious. The men left there by Sheikh Amar were also among those, and they greeted their leader in a more staid manner and accepted by his nod that he would inform them of what had gone on when they returned home. And at the steps of the palace waited the two soldiers who had helped their prince liberate his princess from the house of horrors which had once been the summer palace of Tus. They moved quickly to help their prince from his mount, seeing by the sling upon his arm and the bandages upon his leg that he was still injured, and they quietly assured him in whispers that his wife was within and said to be well by Seso and the healer who had come with Sheikh Amar; the sheikh had met them as they rode back toward Alamut, and had some of his men escort them in that they might have more swords and more help lest they encounter something dangerous, burdened as they were. And his having come there, and the knowledge that he had ridden after her husband to help him, had been a great relief to the princess as well as it had been to them.

Dastan thanked them, and turned and waved his good hand – the mark of the Sandglass covered by leather, as was his custom – at the people who were watching before beginning up the steps and entering the palace of Alamut. He sighed in relief to see it just as he had left it, and to smell in the air only the scents of flowers and incense and the breeze that blew in off the desert. It would be a long time, he decided, before he would be able to bear the scent of roasting meat, and until then those in the palace would just have to suffer to eat things which were not cooked in that way.

A wrinkled old woman was waiting for them, and she bowed with he approached. Sheikh Amar greeted her by name. “Hetta.”

“My lord, all is well,” she said.

“I knew it would be, with you here,” was his reply. “Will you take the prince to see his wife? And then he must rest as well, as his wounds were cursed and heal but slowly.”

“He fought a demon, I would expect nothing less,” she said. “Come, Prince, come with me. Your wife is eager to see you.”

Dastan faltered for a moment, although it was barely noticeable. “Is she?”

Hetta smiled at him kindly. “She is,” she assured him. “Did you not risk all to save her? Did you not give her your own cloak to wrap herself in, and send her on her way with your most trusted men and words of love in her ears?” She took his arm, and he found to his surprise that though small and withered she was surprisingly strong and was helping to support him on the stairs. “It is the finest kind of man, and rarely found, who has a heart so pure as yours, Prince Dastan, and eyes so clear that they see _asha_ where others see only defilement.”

He started. “I would have never…”

“No, nor would my master; but many a man would, and many a man has.” She patted his arm. “You are a good man. I will let you show yourself to her, and then we will go see how slowly your wounds are healing so that I may tell her how long it will take. If she has never seen you injured, and I know she has not, then this knowledge will mean much to her.”

Dastan hadn’t thought of that, but he realized that he probably should have; Tamina had never seen him injured, as the gift of the Sandglass meant that he could keep such wounds as he had now from ever occurring. She would doubtless be alarmed by this new circumstance, and all he could do to reassure her would not be too much. “As you say it,” he agreed, and smiled down at the old woman. “I will go with you, and do as you say, as soon as my wife will release me.”

Hetta snorted under her breath. If he thought his wife would be willing to release him any time soon, he was even younger in the ways of marriage than she’d thought. But the knowledge he was about to gain would doubtless be good for him – it wasn’t like she did not know what had happened at the summer palace of Persia, as it had been she who had told Amar of her visions and warned him to be on his way with all haste lest the world be destroyed by his lateness. And he had listened to her, as he almost always did, and all had been saved because of it. These young ones would recover, and in time the gods would give them another child. She had seen that, too.

 

Hetta sought out her master some hours later, as he had known she would; he drew her aside, finding a space where none could easily overhear them. “The young prince will be well in time,” she told him. “So long as he does not use his Mark for a month of days, and the princess does not use the Dagger, his wounds will heal as any other wound.”

“And the princess?” Amar wanted to know. “She is…well?”

“No woman would be. The demon took her under the green wedding scarf after promising that, should she voice her agreement, her son would be spared,” she said, and spat off to the side. “Pah. She knew he lied, but she could not bear to see the child killed in front of her; and she had hopes that he would keep the boy alive to keep her biddable. He did so only until he knew the prince was on his way, and then the boy was butchered for his table.”

Amar’s face grew grim. “So the table with its half-picked carcass…”

“Was a tableau meant for the prince’s eyes, although to dine in such a manner and on such meat was truly the demon’s habit. He brought the meat to the princess, and she threw it at him and attacked him with the serving platter. But he did not dare starve her to seek her capitulation, as he needed a child and the child must have food within the womb as well as out of it.”

“But there is no…”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, and I have assured her that there never was – and the prince as well. They believe the demon lied.”

Amar sighed and sat on a chair. “I told Dastan that his princess would bear no demon spawn, as I knew you would not allow it if it could be prevented and I could not lie to him outright,” he said heavily. “But I told the lie in full to his men, that it was the demon who lied to taunt him. Hopefully he will not recall that the demon spoke of it as a certainty, or that I did not say outright to him that the demon’s words were false.”

“He does not, I have made sure of it.” That made his eyebrows raise, and she drew nearer to him and cocked her head. “My lord, you well know what I can do. And never once have you known me to do it lightly.”

“No, that is true. Is there aught else that I should know?”

She laughed. “No, my lord. The princess sleeps. Her prince sleeps beside her, as she would not allow him to be taken from her side – she had indeed never seen him injured, and I had to be very firm with her in that the Sand would harm and not help him, for she was ready to run to her temple to get it even as I uncovered the first wound.”

“Healing?”

“A month of days, as I said. And it will be a good month, for she will have the tending of him to occupy her mind and hands, and he will see that it is good for her and allow himself to heal fully.”

This time it was Amar who laughed, but he sobered quickly. “Did you tell him?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I told him that it was my father’s brother who bore the Mark, just as he does. I will tell him the story of it later when he is feverish and fretful and cannot sleep, and she will hear it with him. It will do them both good to know that they are not alone in their duty, and that others whom the gods deemed worthy have also borne the Mark.”

 

The time for Hetta’s tale to be told came but two days past the return of Prince Dastan and Sheikh Amar to the city of Alamut. The air was warm and heavy, and between that and the pain of his wounds and in his heart the prince could not be made comfortable enough to rest, so she proposed to occupy his mind and that of the Princess Tamina – who had refused to leave her husband’s side for even a moment – with a tale which she promised would be of interest to him. Dastan was not sure it would be so, but he thought whatever tale it was might distract his precious princess from her worry and grief and so allowed that the tale might be told.

Hetta well knew what was in his mind. “It is a tale which will be of interest to you both, but which will have special meaning for you, Prince Dastan,” she told him. “For it was my father’s eldest brother who came once long ago to Sharaman and told him of the Sandglass, and of the secret of sacred Alamut.” She nodded when the prince gasped in shock. “He bore the Mark, just as you do, on the palm of his hand.”

“How did he come by it?” Dastan wanted to know.

Hetta smiled. “As he told it, foolishness. He was travelling and saw smoke as of something burning, and found some raiders trying to take the village which guards the Caves of the Sandglass. Being young and brave, he went to aid the villagers in driving the raiders off, and ended up chasing one of them into the Caves, where the foolish man was attempting to make a hole in the Sandglass to extract the sand. My uncle killed the man, but the hole had been made and Sand was leaking…and outside he heard the screams of raider and villager alike as the wrath of the gods began to boil in the sky. And so he stopped the flow of sand with the only thing he had available – his hand. The wrath receded, the raiders fled in fear, and the men in the village came into the Caves and found my uncle standing there with his hand pressed to the hole. They were amazed he was alive, and when they pulled his hand away that the hole might be repaired, they found that it was sealed and he bore a brand in the shape of the Sandglass where it had touched him.” She grasped Dastan’s half-curled hand and turned it over, revealing his own Mark. “Just like this one. And just like yourself, he learned to use the power of the Sands that was after that time a power within him and part of him, a reward and a duty from the gods who had found him worthy.” She curled his fingers back over the Mark. “You do well to keep it hidden, as many would not understand its meaning and you would not be able to explain away their fear of it.”

Dastan pulled his arm back over his stomach, where it had been lying before she had taken his hand. “I wear leather coverings over my hands when I ride out of Alamut, or gloves if they are appropriate enough to not draw attention. But you have still not told us how you knew to tell Sheikh Amar to come to our aid so quickly.”

She smiled. “My family has been in service to our lord’s family for many generations,” she said. “Our gift, the gift of seeing what should happen, has been passed from father to daughter and daughter to son; those children who do not inherit the visions are employed as healers, for they still have the knowing even if they cannot see it. The sheikhs have guarded and protected us, and in return we guide and advise them. It was my father who sent Amar into the Canyon of Ghosts to set up his sanctuary, just as it was I who told him that the stranger who came boldly bearing a gift he should not have known to give should be welcomed by him and would someday be like to a brother to him.”

“He has been like to a brother to us,” Tamina said, curling into her husband’s side in the piled cushions. “He has become our family in all but blood.”

Dastan nodded his agreement. “We were once only allies; now, we are friends, and perhaps family as well.” A tremor shook him as he remembered his own family was entirely lost to him, and Tamina curled in even closer. “We have none in the world but him now.”

“There, there, young one,” Hetta soothed him. “I know that you are in pain now, and your losses are sharp. But hear me and believe: For I tell you on the strength of my gift that Amar will be the family which you need have no fear of losing, for he will be with you for so long that it will be like to forever and that when you die, it will be by choice and you will leave this world together and without regret.”

Dastan stared at her. “I…”

“No more will I say on that subject,” Hetta told him, and patted his hand again. “Some things you must learn for yourself as the passage of time unhides them. I tell you only enough to ease your heart, that it might heal as your body does – slowly, but well.”

Dastan turned his hand over and captured hers within it. “Then I thank you for the sharing of your gift, and I will not ask for more than should be known,” he said, and the smile which flickered across his grief-ravaged face was a sign all its own of how he would heal. “And know that should you or yours ever require sanctuary, your family is welcome and will be protected in Alamut so long as we live and rule here.”

“So long as that? A very long time, my prince,” she replied, bowing her thanks to him and then reclaiming her hand. “I will leave you to your rest now, and return to see that all is as it should be for the evening meal when it is brought to you.”

And with that she left the room, but did not leave entirely, for she paused outside to look in through the decorated panel of the door with one old eye. And seeing the two young ones curled up in the cushions and falling to sleep together like a pair of contented children, she did then leave and went tell her master that all would indeed be well with them and he could lay his worries aside. Although she did not plan to tell him of her latest vision; that was for Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina to share with him when the time was right.


	6. Chapter 6

Time flowed on, and just as old Hetta had predicted Prince Dastan and Princess Tamina ruled Alamut for a very long time – an unnaturally long time, although there were none who truly marked it as Alamut was more legend than city to most of the world. The surviving child of Tus, the lone son who had survived to be the heir of the Persian throne at his death, had been too young to have known what had occurred or to have been told the secret of the Sands, and Garsiv had produced no heirs before his death who could have been told either. And so the story of the siege of Alamut, the betrayal of Nizam, and the destruction of the last of the Hassansin had gradually fallen into legend, a story told with much embellishment and little truth, and the existence of a third son of Sharaman had become but a story as well.

No more sons had come to the rulers of Alamut in all that time, or daughters either, for it was a curse on those who used the power in the Sands to keep age and death from them that their fertility should be as dead seed falling on barren fields, and that the blessing of children might only come to them if it were the will of the gods. So Dastan and Tamina had known the joy of but one child of their blood, and as he had been killed by the demon who had masqueraded as Tus there had been no more such blessings for them and they had not the heart to pray for more – such had been the horrific fate of their only son, and though it had served to bring an end to the demon they were even after a hundred years not reconciled to the knowledge that the gods had gifted them a son only for him to be a sacrifice.

It came to pass that a great conqueror arose by the name of Alexander, and he sought to conquer all the world. And when his eyes and his armies turned to mighty Persia – which was not so mighty any more, although it was still a large and prosperous empire – word reached the rulers of Alamut and plans were made at once. Desperate plans, as it was not within imagination that Alexander should gain control of the Sands of Time and the power within them that should not be abused for the unworthy goal of empire-building. Dastan at once mounted his swiftest horse and rode like the wind for the city of his friend and ally Sheik Amar, to warn him and to include him in the plans that had been made if he so desired.

Sheik Amar still dwelt in his tent city, although now it was more city than tent and very rich. He too had been allowed into the secret of the Sands, as he was an honorable man in his own way and his own place and he was wise enough in the ways of the world to know that such a secret was too much and too dangerous to profit from. He had created an illusion about himself, such that he would age and appear to grow old, and then on his ‘deathbed’ would send for a ‘son’ who had been raised elsewhere. His ‘son’ would appear and continue to run the city in his place as his heir until he too grew old and produced from nowhere an heir who looked just like him. This game amused Amar to no end, and many people believed that his sons were raised secretly in Alamut, perhaps even in the royal palace itself.

Dastan greeted his oldest friend with only the minimum of courtesy required. “I bring you the gift of a warning,” he began almost the moment he had dismounted his horse. “Alexander is coming. If he travels as has been reported to me, he will be upon us within a month.”

Amar nodded. “So I have just heard as well; I had thought to send messengers to you today bearing the same gift.” He took his friend’s arm. “Come with me, we will discuss this matter in private. For I have heard that Alexander sends out those who will be his eyes and ears far and wide in his desire for knowledge that will make his conquests more fruitful.”

“So I have heard as well,” Dastan agreed, and went with Amar to the private room where they had signed their first pact of alliance. This room had thick walls and was attended only by Amar’s most trusted servants, it was as safe from spies as any place could be that was not built atop a distant mountain in an unknown country. He sat in his accustomed place, sinking into the cushions with a sigh, missing the presence of the wise and honorable Seso, who had died many years before; it had been his death, in fact, which had caused Dastan and Tamina to offer the gift of the Sands to Amar. “We will tell our people to flee if they so choose, or to stay and accept the rule of Alexander if that is what they prefer. Tamina and I must go to defend the Sandglass from discovery.”

“It cannot fall into the grasp of Alexander ‘the Great’, no,” Amar agreed with a snort. “If he did not cause the destruction of the world in his greed to have all that he sees, he would be arrogant enough to set himself up as Emperor Eternal and attempt to rule every living thing as though he were a god.”

“From some of the tales I have heard, he already thinks of himself as one,” Dastan said. He sighed again. “At least he is not cruel to those he conquers in the way he makes his laws; but he takes more than he can hold, and those he has taken will eventually be taken by others not so conscientious or accepting of differences as his grasp grows weaker.”

“Which would be yours and mine, for starters.” Amar nodded. “I, too, may have my people flee. They can go to India, or Africa, for I do not believe he will stretch his hand out that far until he has taken Persia and Greece.”

It was Dastan’s turn to snort. “He will lose fingers if he stretches his hand out to Greece. You’ve heard of the warrior-city of Sparta.”

“Aye, yes I have.” Amar chuckled. “They’ll make him pay for his pleasure, yes – not that I’ve heard he doesn’t already, Alexander isn’t said to be one to deny himself claiming and holding any pretty thing he finds, no matter what it is or whose it is.”

Dastan smiled at him. “Pity he did not come here first, you might have chained him by his vices and kept him a slave to pleasures other than battle and conquest.”

“Even I’m not that good,” was Amar’s reply, although he was pleased by the jest. He slapped his hand on the table. “We will flee, then. I’ll lead my people to a place beyond Alexander’s reach, take our wealth with us and cater to the vices we find there – Africa would be best for that, I believe. Even if he takes Egypt, he won’t reach to Africa without a larger army than he has now.”

“I agree.” Dastan reached into his shirt and pulled out a small bag of richly embroidered silk, which he set gently in the center of the table. “You may need this. Tamina drew it out for you herself, and called the blessing of the gods down on it, such as that is.”

Amar did not quite wince. What the gods had done to his young friends had left its mark, even upon himself, jaded and world-wise as he was. That the Princess Tamina, Priestess of the Sandglass, would go to her altar and call upon those gods in order to draw and bless a pouch of the precious Sand just for him was a rare and priceless gift. A farewell gift, in fact, as Amar knew that he would likely never see his friends again in this world once Dastan had departed this day. Tears came to his eyes, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand before reaching out and taking the gift. He tucked it into his shirt against his heart, just as Dastan had brought it. “No thanks could be worthy enough for a such a gift as this,” he said unevenly. “If there is aught I can do for you…”

“You did already.” Dastan smiled at him, although his eyes were somewhat wet as well. “You came to us after the demon who posed as my brother was defeated, you brought those who could heal Tamina, you kept me from falling into insanity in my rage and grief. You have been our good friend and only family all these years, Amar, and this is little enough that we can do to see you on your way to building a new city of vices in some far-off place.”

Amar dashed at his eyes again, but he nodded. “Very well. But should you find a way to make the Sandglass safe, and decide to venture out into the world again…you must come to me, and be welcomed into my household as family, and we will face the future together – however long we may choose it to be.” He quirked a smile. “Eventually we will all grow tired of living forever, I believe. And I would choose to die with friends by my side.”

He held out his hand, and Dastan took it. “Agreed,” the younger man said – younger in years only, for at this time they both looked to be men of the same age. “If our duty allows, Tamina and I will come to find you in Africa, and join your household. And we will all die together when the time is right. You have my word on this.”

“Your word has always been good, Dastan.” Amar grasped his hand a moment more, then released him. “I know you would ride back at once, for there is much to be done and the armies of Alexander come ever closer. If any of your people wish to travel with us, send them with all haste and whatever they can carry, and we will make them welcome.”

“Thank you, I will tell them – but only if I can be sure the spies of Alexander are not among them. I will send word to you either way, by a messenger I can trust who will stay with you and not return to Alamut.”

“Agreed.” Amar rose from his seat, Dastan did likewise, and they embraced each other as brothers might before Dastan took his leave to make his way swiftly back to Alamut. Amar patted the silken bag that rested against his heart and went to call those of his people that he trusted to him, to begin arrangements for their city’s relocation to Africa. It was where the ostriches had come from, after all, so it should be a good place for them to go back to.

When Dastan returned to Alamut, he went straight to his princess and embraced her. “It is done,” he whispered in her ear. “Your gift brought tears to his eyes. And he and his people are on their way to Africa, far from the reach of Alexander of Macedon.”

Tamina buried herself in his chest. He had been her strength for so long, this noble prince of a Persia long gone, and the depth of his love still humbled her. “It was my pleasure to give him a future of his own making, with what blessing I could call down from the capricious gods I serve,” she whispered back. Even here, in their personal rooms in the palace, it was possible to be overheard. “You told him…”

She felt her husband’s laughter bubble within him, although only the softest of sounds escaped his lips. “He says that when we have found a way to keep the Sandglass safe, we are to come find him in Africa and join his household as his family. He says that eventually we will all grow tired of living forever, and that he wishes to die with friends by his side.”

She held him tighter. “Think you that the gods will let us leave the Sandglass?”

He kissed the top of her head. “I think that we make our own destiny, my love. We shall find a way, you have my word. We will not whither and die in a cave, watching the wrath of the gods bide its time to the end of the world.”

Tamina pulled back from him. “You know something.”

Dastan shook his head. “No, I am guessing. But I believe I am right. We will make it safe, and then we will leave it to its fate, our duty done and our honor unblemished. Some of our people may go with Amar, and so a little bit of Alamut may be waiting for us when we finally arrive at our new home.”

“Alamut has been my home for three hundred years!”

He shrugged. “And mine for more than half of that, my love. But we could not continue on here forever as we are, you know this. Had it not been Alexander that forced us to leave this place, it would have been something else. Perhaps even some threat less distant and more immediate – and more dangerous than the Macedonian army with their ‘great’ leader at their head.”

Tamina sighed and pushed him away. “Your wisdom still surprises me sometimes, my husband. It is as you say. Now how shall we tell our people that they must flee their homes?”

“Some may not want to.” Dastan left her side to pour himself a cup of wine from the sideboard. He took a mouthful, then reversed time by a few seconds and chose a different decanter, placing the poisoned one off to the side to deal with later. “There will be those who would choose the rule of Alexander if it would mean keeping their homes, and those who will say that being part of one empire is very like to being part of another.”

“They were never part of Persia in that way, thanks to you.”

“No, but some think they were.” He took another drink, letting it wash the last of the dust of his ride to Amar’s city and back out of his throat. “As I see it, the best way would be to tell our people that Alexander is coming, and to offer them a choice: stay or go. We will remind them only that there is a city to the east and south of us which may welcome them if they wish to leave before the Macedonians arrive. And that we ourselves will be leaving for another place, as the gods do not wish their priestess to become another bride of Alexander.”

She shuddered. “Their priestess would take her own life with her own hands before that would happen.” Her husband came back to take her in his arms again, and she again accepted the safety of his embrace. “Never again, my husband.”

“No, never again.” Dastan stroked her hair until she had calmed somewhat, and then he drew her to the sideboard and poured wine for her as well, making her drink it. “I would kill him first, Tamina, or you yourself would – or perhaps we could do it together, many times over, until it became boring to us and we left him dead a final time.” She smiled, and he resumed his pacing around the room, speaking louder now for the benefit of the ears that he now knew were listening. “The City of Golden Plumes will eventually be found and taken – it is a city of vices, even one such as Alexander will not leave it standing. Still, we will give our people the choice to go to him if they wish to take the chance. You and I had best pick a different direction – Egypt? Or perhaps India? I hear there are temples and palaces there of great beauty, and their ways are similar to ours in many respects although their gods are different. We could be comfortable in India, and I do not believe that the Macedonians have it in their sights at present – it is far too large to conquer with the army they currently have.”

“I concur, my husband,” Tamina answered him. “There would be mullahs there who would be pleased to welcome fellow rulers, and we could with their aid find a place for ourselves. When do you think it best that we leave? Preparations must be made…perhaps a week, or two?”

“Two might be too many.” Dastan made a show of thinking about it, trying to hide his laughter; they had often played this game with the spies in the palace, it was a familiar amusement for the two of them. “A week, and not longer than that, and we should go. We can ride out at dawn, taking such servants and possessions as we may need but not so many or so much that they will slow down our journey.”

“Agreed.” She finished her wine and stood up. “I will at once begin to choose those who should go as my handmaidens, and what precious possessions we should carry with us on our flight to safety in India. And then I shall shut myself up in the temple and beseech the gods for their good favor on our journey.”

“Of course,” Dastan agreed, and sat down to finish his own wine once she had left the room. The spy left moments later, as evinced by a rustle that should not have been heard, and he smiled to himself. He and Tamina would leave in a few days, alone, taking with them only what they could carry. The people of the tiny village that guarded the entrance to the Sandglass would be sent away, sent to Amar to go with him in safety to Africa, and then they would destroy the village and shut themselves up inside the caves in such a manner that none might find the entrance. The servant-spies here in Alamut would be in for a rude awakening when Alexander arrived, and even the morning after Dastan and Tamina had left, for they would use the power of the Sands to make the temple and family sections of the palace appear as though they had not been inhabited in a century. And then Alexander would find Amar’s city weeks abandoned…he was not known to be forgiving with those who misled him, so the spies would pay for their betrayal of sacred Alamut with their lives. Alexander would doubtless leave one of his generals in charge of the city, as there would still be many people and much wealth there, and he would also doubtless think them to have been deceived for some generations as to the existence of a prince and princess dwelling in the palace – and here the legends would protect their secret, for all the Macedonians would know of the rulers of Alamut would be stories older than a grandfather’s grandfather, and even their very names would go to making the conquerors think that the true rulers of Alamut must now be dust.

After a time, Dastan went off to bed, tired from the day’s journey. He rose early the next morning, however, and joined his wife at daybreak in the place where they were wont to address the people of the city, having sounded the great horn that called them all to assemble. The two of them made their address, and had it written out and taken all around the city as well so that all might know of what was coming, and then they retreated into the palace and closed it up that none might enter.

They left after moonrise only a day later, riding out with four good horses, enough travel rations to last two people for a very long time, and enough of the palace’s wealth to keep them comfortable if they were in time able to move on from their duty. Dastan led them on a circuitous route, moving at first as though they were fleeing toward India and then changing their course to point to parts unknown. He changed their course again in a place that he knew of where none could track them, and then they headed toward the caves of the Sandglass.

The people of the village there were not at first inclined to leave, but they were finally persuaded and disappeared into the desert, taking another confusing route suggested by Dastan which would prevent any of Alexander’s men from finding and following their trail back to the place they had left. And as soon as they were all gone, Dastan and Tamina gathered all that they had left and hid it within the caves, even to the few goats that remained, and then used the power of the Sands and fire to make the village appear an old ruin, long abandoned.

And then they retreated into the Caves, and caused the rocks to fall and conceal the main entrance. There was another entrance, far below, which would provide them with a method of leaving the caves when the time was right; it opened out into a small hidden canyon which was fed by a pool and stream within the caves which did not show outside of them. This tiny valley held enough grass for the horses and goats, and the way up and out of it could not be seen from above. Here they would be safe from discovery by the Macedonians, and the secret of their duty would be safe until the gods let them know that it was time to leave the Sandglass alone in its hidden sanctuary, until the dawning end of all the world required its powers to be released for a final time.


End file.
